


Mnemosyne

by MilesHibernus



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dissociation, Dubious Consent, Flashbacks, HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Steve has got it together OK?, Steve's Sexual Orientation Is Double Dog Dare, Surprisingly functional Bucky, offscreen non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:36:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6034773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/pseuds/MilesHibernus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's working on dealing with a mission gone wrong when Bucky comes in from the cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mnemosyne

By the time STRIKE broke the door in, Steve had himself put back together. The four men who’d been in the interrogation room with him were all down. Steve didn’t know how many of them were going to be getting up again, and was ashamed of the fact that he didn’t care. Nor had he pulled his punches as much as he normally tried to.  
  
“Cap, thank fuck,” Rumlow said. “Here.” He tossed Steve his shield. “You want us to bag and tag these assholes?”  
  
“Any of ‘em that’re breathing,” said Rollins, from where he knelt next to one. “So not him.”  
  
Rumlow huffed a laugh. “Guess you were pissed.”  
  
“Threatening my men does that,” Steve said shortly. They’d had STRIKE on a monitor, to make sure he’d be able to see them be shot if he resisted. But they hadn’t paid very good attention to it themselves, so Steve had been the first to notice when Mercer got her cuffs off.  
  
Rumlow looked him over and asked, “You okay?”  
  
“Fine now,” Steve said. “Let’s wrap this up.”  
  
“You heard the Cap,” Rumlow said.

* * *

When the debriefing was formally over, Hill picked up her papers and left with Rumlow. Fury didn’t stand up, though, so Steve stayed where he was.  
  
“I get the feeling you’re not telling us everything,” Fury said.  
  
“I told you everything relevant,” Steve said wearily. “Our intel was bad, they got the drop on us, they didn’t have the records you wanted. Mercer should get a commendation. What else do you need to know?”  
  
Fury’s eye could be piercing, but Steve had grown up with Sarah Rogers; he wasn’t impressed. “It surprises me that they didn’t try to get any intel out of you.”  
  
Steve shrugged. “They were going to just kill us until they realized who I was,” he said. “We’d all be dead if they hadn’t wanted to pound Captain America for a while.”

* * *

His apartment wasn’t home, not the way Brooklyn had been home, and by the standards of the building he'd just left it was about as secure as a little girl's diary, but it had a door that locked and it was _his_. Steve knew it was irrational to take the shield into the bathroom with him but he did it anyway and turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it and stood under the spray, rubbing soap into his skin, until he was forced out by the trembling edge of heat exhaustion.

* * *

About a week later Natasha made one of her unannounced visits, sitting on the steps of his building when he got back from visiting Peggy.  (Peggy had had a very good day, with no lapses at all; she had even remembered him when he first walked in.)  Steve could tell Nat had just gotten back from assignment because her hair was the new-penny bright of a fresh dye job—and besides, she'd have been around before this if she'd been available.  "Let me guess," he said as he got to the foot of the steps.  "Someone told you about my bad mission."

"Someone told me you got bad intel, if that's what you mean," Natasha answered as she stood, dusting off the seat of her pants.  "You wanna talk about it?  Trust me, I know from bad missions."

Steve sighed.  "Everyone these days seems to think that talking is the answer to everything.  No, I don't want to talk about it."

"OK," Natasha said agreeably.  "You wanna let me buy you a cup of coffee then?"

Steve wavered.  "Sure."

They went to the coffee place a few blocks away, drank coffee that wasn't quite as ridiculously overpriced as it might have been, and talked about nothing in particular for an hour or so.  On the walk back to Steve's building, apropos of nothing, Natasha said, "Sometimes things happen that we can't control.  You know that, right?"

Steve wanted to take offense, but her tone was too casual for that.  "Nothing happened that a few good showers won't cure.  It's not like it's the first time I've been beaten up."  He wasn't even jumpy in public.

Natasha hummed agreement and they parted ways at his building's front door.  It wasn't until Steve was inside that he realized she hadn't tried to set him up with anyone.

* * *

Against the glass in the elevator, hands on his forearms and biceps and even ankles, one wrist cuffed to the goddamn wall, Steve panicked. He struggled wildly and only the fact that he was vastly stronger than the guys trying to hold him let him get away with it without ending up in a much worse position.  
  
The voice in his head, the one that told him when he was screwing up, said sharply, _Get it together, Rogers, right fucking now!_ and Steve clamped down hard on his self-control. He could panic later. It wasn't the same anyway; the only thing really holding him down had been the desire to protect the STRIKE team.  
  
The STRIKE team that was trying to arrest him now. Steve kicked again. Rollins grunted and collapsed.

* * *

In the end, Bucky found them.  
  
They stood on a platform in Dworzec Główny, their bags at their feet. Steve was discouraged and tired as hell and he knew Sam was a little better off but only because finding Bucky didn't matter to him the way it did to Steve; they were both staring blankly, nothing on their minds but wanting the train to arrive so they could sit down and sleep for a few hours. When someone came up to stand beside him, Steve didn't even glance over. The presence at his left shoulder was so familiar that it took him more than a minute to realize why it shouldn't be there.  
  
When he finally looked, Bucky was smirking at him. "Hey," he said. "I got some stupid here, you know who I should return it to?"  
  
"Bucky," Steve said. "Bucky, my God." On his other side Sam muffled a surprised yelp, but for that first second nothing mattered but Bucky.  
  
Bucky's face gentled to a real smile. "Hey, Steve," he said quietly, and didn't flinch when Steve yanked him into a hug.

* * *

Bucky wasn't farther than arms' length from Steve for the entire train trip and Steve woke up more than once having been asleep on Bucky's shoulder. (Bucky didn't sleep on the train, and upon reflection Steve didn't find that surprising.) Sam, if his face was anything to go by, didn't want to think it was cute but did anyway. He restricted himself to light conversation until they hit their hotel in Paris, whereupon he tossed the keys to the double room thoughtfully in his hand once or twice and then held them out to Bucky, who took them with a slight widening of his eyes.  
  
"I think you two need some time to catch up in private," Sam said.  
  
"You're not worried?" Bucky asked bluntly, before Steve could.  
  
"I'm petrified," Sam replied. Bucky made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough. "But the way you prove someone's trustworthy is to trust them. You've already had plenty of chances, and besides you can't tell me I'd be more'n a speed bump at this kind of range."  
  
The face Bucky made was so purely _him_ , so James Barnes admitting _Yeah, OK, you got me there_ , that Steve started laughing right there in the lobby and couldn't stop.

* * *

The laughter finally trailed off when Steve was sitting on the edge of the hotel bed with Bucky right beside him. "What the hell was that about?" Bucky asked, in a tone of sincere curiosity.  
  
With an effort Steve managed to not let it set him off again. "Your face, that's all."  
  
"Nothin' wrong with this face," Bucky said loftily.  
  
"You keep tellin' yourself that, Buck," Steve said. They caught each others' eyes in a sideways glance that drove the breath from Steve's chest. "Bucky," he said.  
  
"I'm sorry. I needed...some time." Bucky sighed and ran his right hand back through his hair. "It took me a few weeks to figure out who I was, and then..."  
  
"I understand," Steve said, and shook his head. "Well, no, I don't understand. But I understand you had to do it."  
  
Bucky said softly, "I don't remember everything. I don't know if I ever will." His hand—his right hand, his flesh hand, Steve tried not to think of it as his _real_ hand—hovered between them, like he wanted to touch but didn't dare. Steve wasn't sure Bucky knew he was doing it.  
  
He caught the hand in his own and Bucky's eyes flicked up to meet his. "Do you remember?" Steve said, his voice rough, and the way Bucky bit his lip was answer enough.  
  
Steve didn't notice moving until their lips met, and it started out light and careful but it didn't stay that way for long, his hand wrapped around the back of Bucky's neck and Bucky's tight on his biceps; their mouths were hot against each other and Steve heard himself make a high pleading noise. They broke and from inches away Bucky said breathlessly, "Jesus, Rogers, tell me that wasn't your first kiss since 1945."  
  
Steve breathed a laugh and said, "Not even close."  
  
"I can work with that," Bucky said, and then he moved, trying to bowl Steve over.  
  
Caught between _This is Bucky_ and _This is an attack_ , Steve locked up; he didn't resist but he couldn't make himself go with it either and they ended up awkwardly sprawled, Bucky half-lying on him with a concerned expression that shaded quickly towards horror as Steve stared. "God, I'm sorry, I didn't—" Bucky began.  
  
Steve forced himself to move, to shake his head. "No, it's fine," he said. "I just—I wasn't expecting you—I didn't think you'd remember." He consciously relaxed, letting the defensive tension leak out of his muscles. This was Bucky. Bucky would never hurt him. Bucky would never do anything Steve didn't want him to do.  
  
"Well I do," Bucky said, sounding relieved. "I couldn't forget that, Steve." Neither of them mentioned that he _had_ forgotten for a while, because that didn't matter anymore; he remembered now, and that was enough for Steve.  
  
"Come on," Steve said, shifting up the bed, and if they ended up side by side instead of Steve on his back with Bucky over him, if they kissed more than anything else, if Bucky came gasping over Steve's hand, that wasn't so unusual.

* * *

Bucky stayed glued to Steve's side until the moment they stepped off the plane in New York. They walked through the terminal like any other group of friends coming home. Steve waited until Sam went into the men's room before he asked, low-voiced, "Buck, what's going on? You don't have to...you know it's legal now, right?"  
  
Bucky gave him a twisted smile. "It might be legal for you to fuck a guy, Steve, but do you want all your new pals to know you're fucking the Winter Soldier?"  
  
Ignoring the self-loathing twist Bucky gave the title, Steve said wryly, "Sam knows." Sam had apparently divined it telepathically during the conversation on the dam outside Fury's bunker. "Natasha will as soon as she sees us, if she doesn't already."  
  
Bucky glanced at the ceiling, his old _Give me strength_ gesture, and Steve's heart clenched. "They both love you. Trust me, it's not that I don't want to. But it'll be easier for us both if we're careful for a while."  
  
"I don't care," Steve said fiercely.  
  
"I do," Bucky snapped. "This is already gonna to be touch and go, Steve. Don't give them any more ammo."  
  
Steve opened his mouth to protest but the look on Bucky's face wasn't one that could be argued around. "Fine, we'll do it your way," he said, and then Sam came out of the restroom.

* * *

Steve knew that Tony Stark would have been perfectly justified in utterly ignoring Bucky’s existence. For that matter, active hostility would’ve been understandable (and hard as hell to defend against; Steve had a ridiculous amount of money but compared to Tony he was strictly minor league, and hell, Tony could kill him and Bucky both if he decided to, not that Steve thought it was likely.) So the amount of _help_ Tony had apparently decided to offer was both welcome and unexpected.  
  
It started with Maria Hill at the airport, cool and terrifying (for reasons that had nothing to do with her ability to shoot things, hit people, or use explosives) in a suit that probably cost more than all the Howling Commandos combined got paid the entire War. “Steve, Sam, it’s good to see you,” she said. Her assessing gaze swept over Bucky. “Sergeant Barnes.”  
  
“Ma’am,” said Bucky. His sidelong glance at Steve said clearly _Where do you find them?_ and Steve had to clench his teeth for a second to keep from laughing.  
  
“I have a car for you,” Hill told Steve briskly, ignoring the byplay. “There’s a driver, but you can send him home if you’d like. Mr. Stark suggests you come to the Tower to, and I quote, figure out exactly what the hell even, but he also told me to emphasize that it’s only a suggestion.”  
  
“The kind of suggestion I’m going to get hourly calls about until I take him up on it,” Steve said.  
  
Hill’s expression didn’t change, but Steve found himself struck, once again, by the way Tony attracted people who found him exasperating to the point of screaming yet stuck around anyway. “I think he intends to start with hourly,” she said, dry as dust.  
  
Steve glanced at Sam, who shrugged, then at Bucky. Bucky’s attention seemed to be fixed on a display of luggage kiosk assignments for incoming flights, but he said, “We should go. I need to talk to Stark anyway.” Steve heard a quiet whir, almost lost under the crowd noise even for him, and realized with a start that it was Bucky’s arm.

* * *

On the drive to the Tower Bucky stared out the window silently until Sam said, “How long’s it been since you were in New York, man?”  
  
“1972,” Bucky said without turning.  
  
“Long time,” said Sam.  
  
Bucky nodded. “They lost track of me. Found me wandering around Vinegar Hill three days later. They weren’t happy.” His voice was perfectly matter-of-fact. “After that they tried to keep me out of the States, at least off the East Coast. They were going to send me in for the aliens—you can’t conquer the world if someone else conquers it first. But moving me wasn’t fast and you had it mopped up before they could defrost me.”  
  
Steve contemplated the awful possibilities inherent in the phrase _They weren’t happy_. _Defrost_ wasn’t a lot better. His hands curled into fists. No one was going to use Bucky again, ever.

* * *

Tony met them in the private lounge high in the Tower. He wore blue jeans and a t-shirt advertising one of the bands he loved, by which Steve deduced he wasn’t planning to go out in public today. “Next time you bring down a secretive international spy agency, I want in,” he said without preamble as soon as Steve was through the door.  
  
Steve set his bag down. “You were recovering from surgery at the time,” he said.  
  
Tony waved the glass he was holding. “Pssh, I fight in armor, I think you've seen it, red and gold and shiny?”  
  
“Natasha wasn’t sure she could get us in touch with you without them catching on, Tony. From our end, not yours.”  
  
Tony gave a good impression of never noticing anything that wasn’t punching him in the nose (or making his dick take an interest), but he didn’t call himself a genius for nothing. “And Fury told you I helped with the engine design. Didn’t he?”  
  
“Yeah, that too,” Steve said with a shrug. Much as he hated to admit it, he’d had some doubt. Tony tended to like big, flashy, once-and-for-all solutions, even to problems that didn’t _have_ that kind of solution.  
  
Tony waggled his head. “OK, fair enough, but in my defense the old design was an affront to the gods of engineering. Speaking of which, you!” He pointed at Sam. “You and I are going to have a very long talk about those wings.”  
  
It wasn’t often Steve saw Sam caught off-guard, but apparently first exposure to Tony Stark was enough to do it. “Uh. OK?” Sam said, and Tony nodded.  
  
“Stark,” Bucky said. He probably sounded calm enough to anyone who wasn’t Steve.  
  
Tony leaned back against the bar—it looked like a full wet bar, and Steve felt a flash of unreality; how had he ended up even knowing people who lived like this?—and said, “I don’t think you did it.”  
  
“What?” Bucky said.  
  
“It was a pain in the ass to get you anywhere, from what I can get out of the data dump,” Tony expanded. “Why bother when a random guy would do the job just as well?” He smiled thinly. "Wasn't like my dad needed a lot of help being a bad driver."  
  
Bucky blinked. “But if I did,” he said.  
  
Tony set his glass down and said seriously, “If you did, you weren’t any more to blame than the gun they gave you to do it with. I saw that chair, Robocop. You’re lucky you could _swallow_ on your own after that.”  
  
In the relative quiet of the Tower, the whir of Bucky’s arm shifting was much louder. “You have the chair,” he said, and Steve tensed. He’d only seen pictures of the thing, and pictures were bad enough.  
  
“Had,” Tony said. “Took it apart, anonymously dumped everything useful we could get about how the brain works to a couple professors, and then I personally reduced the fucking thing to its _component fucking atoms_.” By the end of the sentence he sounded savage and Steve was reminded again that the danger Tony presented had very little to do with his technical skill. He was a good man, but even good men could be pushed beyond their limits.  
  
Bucky had gone pale. Steve put a hand on his arm to steady him and asked, “Who’s we?”  
  
“Me, Bruce and Betty,” Tony said. “Do you know Betty? She’s Bruce’s friend, by which I mean they’re sleeping together or at least I think they are? He’s got the heartrate thing, so maybe not. But she’s damn good and way closer to an actual medical field than Bruce or me.”  
  
“Tony, look, thank you,” Steve said. “But we’ve been on the road for two days. Can we…”  
  
“There are rooms ready,” Hill said smoothly.

* * *

There were three, but no one looked even mildly surprised when Bucky and Steve took their bags to the same one. Bucky marched over to the window and yanked the curtains closed, and stood there with his forehead leaning against the fist bunched in the fabric. “How does Stark surveil this room?”  
  
“Jarvis,” Steve said.  
  
After a tiny pause, the pleasant English voice said, “Good day, Captain Rogers, how may I help you?”  
  
“Explain how much you watch this room, please,” Steve said.  
  
“Unless I’m specifically addressed, I monitor for signs of severe distress only,” Jarvis said. “Nothing is recorded except by direct request of the people to be recorded. Mr Stark takes his guests’ privacy very seriously.” There was a tactful pause. “If you prefer, I can set my active monitoring to require a physical override.”  
  
“Please,” said Steve.  
  
“Very well. If you wish to interact with me in the future, press one of the intercom buttons.” On the wall, a panel pulsed light for a moment. “Will that be all, Captain?”  
  
“Yes, thanks,” Steve said. He wasn’t sure how much of a person Jarvis really was, but it didn’t cost anything to be polite.  
  
“My pleasure,” Jarvis said, and fell silent.  
  
Bucky didn’t move. Steve went over to stand within arm's reach. “Buck,” he said.  
  
Bucky swallowed. “I guess there’s nothing I can do about it if he’s lying,” he said quietly, and let go of the curtain like he was forcing his hand to release its grip. “Do you believe him?”  
  
“Tony will lie about plenty of things, but I don’t think this is one of them,” Steve said.  
  
“Do you believe him about the chair?”  
  
Steve took a deep breath. “Yeah.”  
  
There was no transition from stillness to movement; Bucky was just suddenly on him, one arm around his waist, kissing him frantically. Steve’s back hit the window and he was trapped between the glass and Bucky’s weight. He stopped himself from shoving by force of will.  
  
“It’s gone,” Bucky muttered against Steve’s jaw. “It’s gone, they can’t, they can’t make me, it’s gone, Steve—”  
  
“I know,” Steve said. “Come on, let’s,” but Bucky was too far gone to hear him, pushing at the shoulders of Steve’s light jacket. “Bucky, _Bucky_ , slow down,” Steve said, and maybe it was his tone of voice but Bucky’s wild eyes met his. “There has to be a bed in this place,” Steve said, and essayed a smile.  
  
Bucky wound his right hand in the front of Steve’s shirt and turned enough to survey the room. “Sofa,” he growled, and hauled Steve towards it.

Steve’s foot tangled in the long curtains and he stumbled. But his hands weren’t fastened behind him with handcuffs he didn’t dare break; he caught himself smoothly enough that he thought Bucky didn’t even notice.  
  
Bucky stopped next to the sofa and shook Steve by the grip on his shirt. “Off,” he said. “All of it.” Steve thought, _Take it off, Captain, you won’t like it if we have to do it for you,_ but that was stupid, and Steve stripped his shirt off and took the jacket with it.  
  
“What happened to being careful?” Steve asked, making sure his tone stayed light.  
  
“Fuck careful,” said Bucky succinctly as his own layers of shirts hit the floor. “Stark knows, Hill knows, the goddamn computer knows and they haven’t killed me yet for defiling Captain America so fuck it.”  
  
Steve thought that wasn’t all, but now was emphatically not the time to discuss it. “Whatever you want, Buck,” he said, fumbling with his belt. Bucky crowded into his space again, his hands, warm and cool, on Steve’s face to kiss him.  
  
“Want you,” he mumbled.  
  
Steve’s breath came short and fast. Bucky’s chest was warm against his own and Steve shivered. The musculature was heavier, the skin smoother, but it was still Bucky. He smelled the same, under the hints of soap and shaving foam. “Whatever you want,” Steve repeated, sounding breathless even to himself.  
  
It took them a minute longer to get their pants off, because it seemed just opening the flies wouldn’t do. Bucky actually broke the laces of his heavy workman’s boots in his hurry. Then they were naked, for the first time since their last leave in London two weeks before Zola’s train, and Steve almost couldn’t stand to look; it seemed like the sight might overwhelm him.  
  
Bucky slid his hand over Steve’s cheek and made him look up. “Stevie. Can I?”  
  
“I...of course you can,” Steve said, and couldn’t think of how to convey how little he’d needed to be asked. Bucky’s hand roamed over his shoulder and arm, like Bucky couldn’t stop touching him, and Steve firmly suppressed the thought of how long it had been since anyone had touched Bucky for any reason other than attacking or punishing him. He’d raged over that before and would again, but he didn’t need to think about it now.  
  
Bucky swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “They can’t make me hurt you again, Steve.”  
  
“Hey, look at me,” Steve said quietly. After a beat Bucky did. “I know you didn’t want to. I know that. OK?”  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky answered, just as quiet. He took a deep breath. “Sit. I need to—where the hell’s my bag?”  
  
Steve collapsed onto the couch, stifling the urge to laugh. Bucky gave him a dirty look over his shoulder as he headed for the bags. Steve smiled innocently and palmed his rapidly stiffening dick. It had always gotten Bucky going to watch Steve touch himself. Bucky checked in mid-stride and said balefully, “Cut that out, Rogers.”  
  
“No,” Steve told him.  
  
Bucky shook his head and snatched his duffel from the floor, yanking it open with force. “Fuck.”  
  
Steve grinned. “That’s the idea.” He dropped his head back and let his eyelids droop, as blatant a display as he could manage.  
  
“Oh, you’re in for it,” Bucky muttered, sifting through his things. After a second he pulled a bottle free triumphantly and let the bag drop.  
  
Steve could follow the subsequent blur of movement, but he was sure most people couldn’t have; the bag was just hitting the floor when Bucky landed in Steve’s lap, straddling him on the sofa, pinning his thighs. Steve’s breath stuttered but he was face-up and if he pushed Bucky away Bucky would go, and he turned the involuntary movement of his hands into a grip on Bucky’s waist, pulling him in. He tilted his face up to be kissed.  
  
“I missed you,” Bucky said instead. “I missed you even when I didn’t remember you.”  
  
“I missed you too,” Steve said, and curled his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck.  
  
The cap of Bucky’s bottle made a tiny snap as he popped it open with his thumb. “OK, you doin’ this or me?”  
  
“Mmmm, you do it,” Steve said, and from the look on Bucky’s face that was the right answer. How long since Bucky had touched someone without meaning to hurt them? The Winter Soldier’s isolation had gone both ways, no doubt by design.  
  
“Lie down, then,” Bucky said, and Steve followed the pressure of his hands until he was lying lengthwise on the couch, his right leg bent against the backrest and his left across Bucky’s lap. Bucky was hard too but he squeezed clear gel onto the fingers of his right hand with what looked like complete concentration.  
  
Bucky’s fingers slid over Steve’s balls and he tensed unexpectedly at the touch. It was too much to hope that Bucky wouldn’t notice. “Hey,” he said.  
  
Steve smiled. “Been a while, that’s all.” He’d gotten very well acquainted with his own hands, upon waking up in the future with no Bucky, no Peggy, and a serum-powered sex drive; plenty of people wanted to lay Captain America, but very few seemed to be interested in _Steve_ and the exceptions were all people he worked with—meaning, in at least one case, Hydra.  
  
“Hope it’s worth the wait,” Bucky said, stroking around Steve’s hole with the pad of his finger.  
  
“It’s you,” Steve said, and tried to relax into it. Bucky was slow, careful, though he obviously wanted to go just as fast as the last person who’d bothered trying this. Because Bucky cared if Steve hurt; Bucky wanted Steve to like it too, and every time Steve made an uncomfortable noise Bucky backed off for a second to let him adjust. Steve was squirming with impatience by the time Bucky said, “I think.”  
  
“Took you long enough,” Steve said, smirking. “I’m a super soldier, y’know, I’m not gonna break.”  
  
“Shut the hell up,” Bucky said, bending down to kiss him roughly. “OK, c’mere.” He ducked under Steve’s leg and sat the right way on the sofa, pulling Steve to sit in his lap, back to chest. Steve went, feeling his breathing speed up again from where it had settled while Bucky worked on him. Bucky gave his own cock a swipe with his slick hand and held it steady. “You ready?”  
  
“As I’ll ever be,” Steve said, and it was only half a joke but Bucky didn’t need to know that. He drew a sharp breath at the nudge of Bucky’s cock against him and they both sighed as Steve settled down, letting gravity help.  
  
“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky hissed against the back of Steve’s neck. He bumped Steve’s knees out to hook over his own, holding Steve spread out, and wrapped his left arm across Steve’s chest. His right hand smoothed down over Steve’s dick and Steve moaned and shuddered as Bucky started to move.  
  
He felt like he was floating, high on the familiar-new sensation of Bucky touching him, under him, inside him, it was like watching himself from the outside. His breath came fast and high in his chest and he couldn’t catch the rhythm but it didn’t matter; Bucky was doing the work here, fucking Steve fiercely. Bucky was getting what he needed and all Steve had to do was take it.  
  
He knew Bucky was talking because he always did, a low-voiced stream of obscenities and endearments, and he was glad Bucky wouldn’t expect him to respond; he’d never been good at talking. He let wordless cries fall from his lips and hoped they sounded encouraging. His dick was still hard where it slid in Bucky’s fist, so that was probably a good sign.  
  
Bucky’s hips moved faster, the steady pace going irregular, and Steve let his head fall back. It was almost over, almost, as soon as STRIKE was safe Steve could fight back, and the man beneath him went still, his grip on Steve tightening till it was almost painful, his cock twitching with his orgasm as he groaned, “Steve, oh, Steve, _Steve_ —” and it was Bucky’s voice, Bucky was here, Steve had to take this so Bucky would be safe, and he was concentrating so hard on controlling the urge to lash out that he didn’t notice when the voice calling his name changed tone.

Hands scraped over his chest. Steve grabbed one of the wrists and twisted before he remembered; dropped it like it was hot and gasped, “I’m sorry, don’t hurt him!”  
  
“I’m fine, I’m right here, Stevie, it’s me,” said Bucky urgently, and Steve froze. “Steve, can you hear me?”  
  
Steve nodded. He let himself be moved. The hands put him down on a soft surface, which was nice, and then the warmth of another body left him. “Bucky,” Steve said involuntarily, and clamped his lips shut.  
  
“It’s okay,” Bucky said. There was a pause, only a second or so, before something was shoved under Steve’s nose. The sharp medicinal burn of camphor and menthol assaulted his sinuses and Steve slammed back into his body like hitting the water without a parachute. He blinked his eyes open and shook his head and focused.  
  
He lay on the sofa, propped against one arm. Bucky knelt next to it, holding a little glass jar full of…“Is that Tiger Balm?” Steve croaked.  
  
Bucky sighed and sat back on his heels, putting the lid back on the jar. “Yeah. OK. What—no, I know what that was. Where were you?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Steve,” said Bucky patiently, “you can’t really think I don’t know a flashback when I see one.”  
  
Steve pushed himself up, heedless of the mess he was probably making of Tony’s no doubt expensive sofa. He couldn’t decide how he wanted to sit, and settled on pulling his knees to his chest and draping his arms around them loosely. Bucky stayed on the floor. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Steve said.  
  
Bucky’s lips twisted and he said dryly, “Like that’s a surprise. But since I’m the guy who just drove you to it, you’re gonna have to.”  
  
Steve protested, “You didn’t.”  
  
“I’m sorry, was someone else fucking you when you freaked out?”  
  
“I didn’t _freak out_ ,” Steve snapped.  
  
“ _The hell you didn’t,_ ” Bucky yelled, and Steve might have flinched if Bucky hadn’t been sitting below him. Flinched away from the one person in the world who’d never hurt him. And who had every right to be angry; Steve should have realized what might happen. But he’d wanted it too, damn it, it had been so long and it wasn’t _fair_. Bucky closed his eyes for a long moment. When he spoke again his voice was perfectly calm. “I’m sorry, Stevie,” he said. “I’m...just worried.”  
  
“You don’t have to worry about me, Bucky,” Steve said, his chin jerking up.  
  
Bucky snorted and said, “Somebody does. God knows you don’t worry about yourself.” He drew a deep, fast breath and let it out again. “Who was it, Steve?”  
  
“Who was—”  
  
“Steve.”  
  
Steve’s shoulders tensed, hunching. “They’re dead.”  
  
Bucky’s face had no expression, as blank as if he were staring through the scope of his rifle, but his hands clenched into fists, the left one rattling softly. “They,” he repeated, his voice flat. Steve grimaced.  
  
“It was about a month before...before. They were gun-runners. Fury thought they had some records on a larger network, but the intel was bad. They got guns on STRIKE and when they recognized me—I couldn’t—but Mercer got out of her handcuffs and I—they didn’t realize how strong I am.” For a second he could feel it again, pain and the crisp snap of the handcuff chain parting, hearing the surprised yelp of the man taking his turn as Steve spun away—  
  
“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky said from much closer. Steve jumped a little at the touch of Bucky’s hand on his foot. Bucky drew back and said evenly, “You know I never would have asked if I knew.”  
  
“I wanted to,” Steve insisted.  
  
“I believe you, but Steve, you don’t always...you aren’t always careful.” He smiled, small and pained. “I remember that much.”  
  
Steve slumped where he sat. He wanted to be angry, but Bucky had survived so much and Steve was, yes, freaking out about one bad mission. What was that against seventy years? “I’m sorry, Buck,” he said. “I didn’t know it was gonna go bad on me.”  
  
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, pal,” Bucky said.  
  
Steve’s hardon had subsided, not that that was a shock, and he was suddenly too tired to talk. “I think I need to lie down,” he said.  
  
“That sounds like a great idea,” Bucky said immediately. “Like you said, gotta be a bed in here somewhere, right?”  
  
As it turned out, there were at least two; it wasn’t a room so much as a whole suite and there were multiple bedrooms. Bucky trailed him, carefully not touching, until Steve hauled the blankets back on one of the beds and collapsed into it. He made to turn away but Steve seized his hand and brought him up short. “Steve,” Bucky said.  
  
“Shut up and get in here,” Steve said. “It’s not going to bother me. They didn’t sleep.”  
  
Bucky’s face wavered into reluctant amusement. “You’re gonna be the death of me, Rogers,” he said, but he climbed into the bed. Steve wrapped himself around Bucky’s back and held on for all he was worth.

* * *

Steve half-woke when Bucky started worming out of his grasp. “Huh?”  
  
“I’ll be back, Steve, just sleep,” Bucky murmured, and Steve grunted and rolled into the warm spot.

* * *

He woke again still alone and with an urgent need to pee. Once that was taken care of Steve sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. The bedside clock informed him that it was two in the morning, but he was awake and hungry.  
  
Their bags sat on the low padded bench that Steve supposed was to sit on while you got dressed. He pulled a pair of sweatpants from his and put them on.  
  
Bucky wasn’t in the living room, or the little kitchenette alcove. He wasn’t in any of the other bedrooms either. Steve’s stomach clenched but Bucky’s bag was still here, and he’d said he’d be back...Steve went to the nearest intercom panel and hit the button.  
  
“Can I help you, Captain Rogers?” Jarvis at least didn’t sound surprised that Steve was awake at this hour.  
  
“Do you know where Bucky is?”  
  
“I directed Sergeant Barnes to the gym approximately an hour ago,” Jarvis said.

* * *

Tony’s gym was about as far from the wood-and-canvas of the place SHIELD had found for Steve as it was possible to imagine. But there were still things to hit, and Bucky was hitting them.  
  
Steve stood in the door watching. Bucky was surrounded by man-high target robots, all of them attacking at once. Steve had worked out against these before; a solid punch would deactivate one for about thirty seconds.  
  
At any given moment, about half of Bucky’s targets were out. The rest of them waved their padded appendages and Bucky weaved and ducked and slid around them. He wore loose pants and a black singlet, no protective gear, not even shoes. There was no sound except for feet on the mats and blows landing and Bucky’s harsh breathing. He’d been at this long enough that he’d slowed down a notch and Steve was reminded of the fight against the Chitauri; by the time they’d dealt with Loki, he’d been so tired he couldn’t hold his head up while he ate.  
  
Steve waited through three close calls, but the fourth time a target-bot swung an arm at the unprotected back of Bucky’s head, Steve threw the shield. It bounced off the bot, whose lights blinked from red to green, and ricocheted back as some of the other bots turned to lock on to Steve. Steve caught it, slipped his arm into the straps, and dove into a roll between the advancing bots to come up next to Bucky. “You got ‘em on the ropes, Buck, or can I get in on this fight?”  
  
Bucky ducked a blow and said to the air, “Level six.”  
  
All the deactivated bots flicked back to red and they started moving faster. Steve grinned.

* * *

They lay on the mat side by side, panting. The target bots had retreated to their charging stations, except for the ones they’d broken. Steve’s fingers rested on Bucky’s forearm.  
  
“Does anyone else know?” Bucky asked when their breathing had slowed.  
  
Steve was tempted to play dumb, but it wouldn’t help. “Natasha probably figured it out.” He stared up at the ceiling. “Buck...it was one time. Less than two hours, start to finish. Hydra had you—”  
  
“I had it worse, so nothing bad happened to you?” Bucky drawled. “Don’t think it works like that.” He took a deep breath. “Besides, they knew what they were doing to me. And even if any of ‘em had been willing to get their dicks that close to the crazy, Zola thought it would be bad for his programming.” Steve turned his head to find Bucky watching him. “They beat me. They cut me. They starved me. Shocked me, froze me, burned me, drowned me. They made me kill people and I’ll never know how many. But they never fucked me.” His lips quirked. “I’m a goddamn mess, Steve. But this one way, you had it worse.”  
  
Steve wanted to say _Fuck you_ but, well. “So I’m broken forever? Fate worse than death? This isn’t a goddamned Victorian novel. I don’t want the fucking heavyweight title for having _had it worse_.”  
  
Bucky closed his eyes and sighed. “Stevie, no, I mean this is the one thing I don’t actually...know about. Anything else, I could tell you how to handle it.”  
  
Steve curled his fingers around Bucky’s arm and said quietly, “There’s no bandage for this. The only thing I can think of is to kill them, and I already did that. And it’s fucking me up, fucking _us_ up, and I just want it gone.”  
  
Bucky’s lips quirked. “Look at it this way, you probably don’t have to worry about whether they programmed you to kill your best friend in your sleep. Ten, twenty years with a headshrinker, you’ll be all set.”  
  
Steve stared at him. Bucky looked back, smiling. “Jerk,” Steve said on the ghost of a laugh. “I did it for the STRIKE team. Seems kind of stupid now.”  
  
“You didn’t know.”  
  
“I should have,” Steve said.  
  
Bucky rolled his eyes. “The _Black Widow_ didn’t know.”  
  
“She never liked Rumlow,” Steve said thoughtfully. “She never really liked any of them. But we trusted SHIELD, I guess.” He sighed. “They must’ve had people in the psych department.”  
  
Bucky sat up. After a second Steve mirrored him. “You’re sure they’re all dead?” Bucky asked.  
  
Steve shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t pull my punches as much as I should have. Broke two necks, the others never woke up. STRIKE killed most of the goons breaking loose.”  
  
Bucky’s jaw clenched for a second but he said lightly, “Great, no one I gotta go kill.”  
  
“You say the sweetest things,” Steve replied in the same tone. Then, more quietly, “Zola’s dead. Pierce bombed him.”  
  
“Couldn’t’a happened to a nicer guy,” Bucky said. He ducked his head forward and gave Steve a sideways look through the curtain of his hair. “I guess we’ll have to find out if he was right about his programming.”  
  
Steve looked up at the ceiling again and laughed. “For a while,” he said, and climbed to his feet. He held out a hand and Bucky took it; Steve pulled him up. “Let’s go get a little more sleep." Today they had to figure out where they were going to go from here, and even with Tony’s help it wasn’t going to be as simple as finding a townhouse in Brooklyn. “It’s gonna be a long day.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt on the [Hydra Trash Party](http://hydratrashmeme.dreamwidth.org/1634.html?thread=3648866#cmt3648866):  
>  _Either a mission gone wrong or skeevy Rumlow relationship, or whatever floats your boat, but the trauma's still pretty fresh when CATWS happens. Bucky comes in from the cold and he's not only touch starved but desperate to prove that he's more than a weapon, that he can do more than kill, destroy, hurt. Steve goes along. Drama. (also hotwrong sex)_


End file.
